Kids, Schools and The Digital Age

I hate this time of year. I love summer and would gladly never look at another snowflake again. I know, it’s still technically summer. But it’s also the end of summer for my kids.

School begins for my youngest son on August 20. Can you believe that? It’s just too early. I’m not ready to send him back yet. Doesn’t matter, though. Levi waved his school list in front of me every day this past week and I finally relented. We went School Shopping.

After we piled the cart with loose leaf paper, spiral notebooks, pens, pencils and a couple hundred other things that the teachers want the kids to have, we headed over to the electronics section. We walked past the digital cameras, lingered at the Lenovo Thinkpad display, checked out the release date for Madden 09 and finally stood in front of the jump drives.

This is significant because I can remember when kids (in other words, me) did not need electronics. I remember when I thought it was quite a leap the first time one of my kids was required to pay a school fee for a 3 1/4 inch floppy.

(For the record, it irked me that I couldn’t just send one of my own since I bought them in bulk. The teacher thought she had to buy them from their supplier or they wouldn’t work in the school’s computers!)

Anyway, our kids are now required to come to school prepared with a jump drive. The paper said that 1GB is a minimum requirement but the 2GB was marked down so I got that one. I wonder how long it will be before kids are required to have laptops at school.